Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Free Energy and Thermodynamics

Spontaneous and Nonspontaneous Processes

• Spontaneous: proceed without any external influence
• Nonspontaneous: needs an external influence to occur
• A spontaneous process will drive towards equilibrium
• These can be fast or slow. We are not talking about kinetics here, that was chapter 14. This is just us talking about IF it will happen, not the speed at which it will.
  • We are speaking about what is thermodynamically favorable

Enthalpy and Entropy

• When we think about enthalpy, we can have a negative delta H function, exothermic and feels hot, or a positive delta H function, endothermic and feels cold.
• Entropy is delta S. This is disorder/randomness (easiest way to call it, but it is the cheap and easy way)
  • The number of ways a system can be arranged
  • Boltzmann's Equation: $S = k\times lnW$